


Crack Open a Head, Just Look Inside

by AmateurScribes



Series: Whumptober 2019 [28]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apathetic Grif, Gen, Imprisonment, Lobotomy, Medical Experimentation, Memory Loss, Prompt Fic, Unethical Experimentation, Whumptober 2019, beaten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-06 04:43:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21220781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmateurScribes/pseuds/AmateurScribes
Summary: How they could have lost against Hargrove's forces in that last stand is just mind-boggling to Grif, especially the consequences of losing. Why the Chairman didn't kill them, is something he wished he knew.





	Crack Open a Head, Just Look Inside

**Author's Note:**

> I like wanted to take a nap today and finish both today's and tomorrow's fic, but obviously some of those goals didn't happen. Oh boy, catching me furiously typing like hell tomorrow on trains and shit.
> 
> For the duration of this event, all mistakes are my own.

The Reds and Blues have remained victorious in nearly every single of their adventures. They were plucky, and they were the underdogs, by all rights they should have died a thousand times over.

They're idiots, but they always win, that's just how it was.

So how was it, that Grif was stuck in a jail cell, armor-less, bags under his eyes so deep that he was sure that his eyes were probably slightly protruded. And that wasn't even counting the addition of scars that the people who ran the 'jail' gave him.

The others were somewhere else in the prison ship, he wasn't sure where they were purposefully separated so that they couldn't escape through their idiotic luck.

He's sure that the Chairman was having a  _ blast _ with seeing them all locked up tight, key thrown out into the endless depths of space without a doubt, with no hope of escape.

That is if Carolina and Wash didn't find them where ever they were. Which, as the pessimistic- although he preferred rational- one of the group, he's sure that they probably won't find them.

How could have gotten beaten so badly?

Oh that's right, Epsilon decided to fragment himself and the suit lasted all of two minutes before they were overwhelmed by Hargrove's forces.

And while Epsilon got to fuck off to AI Hell or where ever AI's went when they stopped existing- he wasn't going to get into the topic of whether artificial intelligence was sentient and had free will that would enable them entrance into an afterlife, it wasn't nearly as amusing when there weren't other people around to discuss it with- the rest of them were left to get captured.

He just missed the others, he didn't really think that he would be saying that, and yet here he was. Yearning for any sort of conversation with someone who wasn't the scientists who would come in and analyze how the  _ fuck _ he- and probably the others too- were alive.

They thought it  _ must _ have been Freelancer technology, must have been some kind of modification made to SIMs that made them so  _ durable. _ Unkillable, whatever.

And they wanted to know just  _ what it was. _ Wanted it for Hargrove's collection of 'priceless' artifacts from the project.

Grif tried telling them that there wasn't  _ anything _ special about any of them- they just couldn't seem to die- but they just threatened to break his jaw and sew it shut.

Needless to say, he didn't talk back since.

Day in and day out, it was the same old routine, and Grif was fine with it at first, but it got old  _ real _ quick.

He just couldn't stop thinking about the chance of seeing any of the others, but mainly Simmons. Fuck, what he wouldn't do to see Simmons again just one last time.

They didn't even need to talk, they could just stare at each other and that would be enough.

He didn't bother trying to count down the days, so everything just blurred together, which is why when something deviates from the norm, he sits up straight in interest.

"Get up," the guard told him, and after eyeing up him and the one beside the man, he gets up slowly. "Put these on," he gestures a pair of rather high tech handcuffs, and despite the way he phrased it, Grif knew that he wanted him to extend his arms.

Grif complied because what the hell was he supposed to do? Besides, this was new, and he felt something akin to a jolt of electricity going through his veins and he felt like some life was inserted into him directly.

He didn't even mind the guarded escort.

What he expected was maybe some sort of interrogation rather than tests, that'd make sense about the change in routine.

What he didn't expect was to be pushed into a room along with Tucker and Simmons.

In his excitement of seeing the other guys, he completely missed the way that Simmons was left in a wheelchair, his prosthetic limbs removed and rendering him immobile, and that Tucker had far more restraints than he had, his arms completely restricted tight against his chest.

"Grif!" Simmons called out, a smile growing on his face, and he reaches out with the only hand that he has. Tucker simply glares at his presence, but his eyes are half-lidded and he seems sort of out of it, not that it mattered to Grif.

"Simmons!" he immediately heads to his side, letting the other man clasp his forearm tightly as their only method of embracing at the moment.

"Don't look so s'happy," Tucker slurred. "They haven' told us why we're here's."

"Is he ok?" Grif asked, directing his question towards Simmons.

Simmons shrugged as best as he could, saying, "He's been like this since I got here. He's probably drugged."

"Yer pro'bly drugged," was the only retort that Tucker could manage. "I'm  _ fine." _

Blinking, Grif figured there was probably a reason why they drugged Tucker and not either of them.

Were he not starved for communication, he could have made the conclusion that Tucker was the more aggressive of them all and that by drugging him they impaired him- the restraints were an added precaution. Simmons didn't need to be drugged as he was already heavily impaired by the removal of his prosthetic limbs, he wouldn't be considered a threat.

And Grif-

He doesn't know why he's not drugged, all he has are the handcuffs. There's probably a reason for that, but just trying to think prolonged about it hurts, so he doesn't.

"What about you, are you ok?" Grif asked Simmons.

"I'm fine, besides not being able to walk on my own," Simmons frowned. "I'm more concerned about you."

"Me?" Grif cocks an eyebrow in confusion. "I'm not nearly half as fucked up as you guys."

"Wrong, lies," Tucker mumbles, jerking his chin at Grif. "Yer face 's all jagsaw."

"Grif, you're covered in scars and stitches," Simmons faced pinched in worry. "Look at us, we don't have any scars."

"An' you've got the line on th' fore'ead," Tucker's arms moved up in a stilted gesture towards his head.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he really doesn't, reaching up he doesn't feel any change or raises on the skin of his forehead.

"Can you really not feel it," Simmons asked, eyes darting all over Grif's body.

"No," he shook his head.

"It kind of looks like the type of scar you'd see on a lobotomy patient," and the maroon designated soldier shuddered. "Grif did they-"

"Why are we bothering to talk about this," his head pounded at the very topic and he was probably only imagining the throb and stinging of a cut on his temple because they were on the subject. "This is the first time I've seen you guys in for fucking ever and we're talking about stupid shit."

"It's not stupid-" Simmons tries to argue, but he's not interested.

"I don't care," he dismisses the other man and starts wandering, wanting to look around the room, to find something interesting.

"Should be fig'ring out how to leave," Tucker hissed, like a cat- literally like a cat, it was sort of unnerving. "Should be think'ng, should-"

"Oh, this makes much more sense," he interrupted, looking at a suspended datapad. "This cohort is for the SIMs who have physical abnormalities. Explains why the others aren't here."

"Does it say anything else," Simmons tries to adjust himself in the wheelchair as if that would allow him to see something on the other side of the room.

"Hm, nope," he walks away, having not actually read anything further. "I'm bored with it."

"What?" Simmons asked annoyed. "Grif, come on, this isn't the time for this. What else did it say?"

"See, when I thought that I would see you guys again it'd be even slightly interesting," he rambles, moving around the room because he could and the others couldn't. "But it was interesting at first, but like, now I'm just  _ bored." _

"Som'thin' to the brain," Tucker says to Simmons. "Messed it up."

"Grif, please just answer this, did they do anything to you," Simmons pleaded.

"What does it matter? We lost anyway," Grif feels tired, so he stops walking around the room, heading back towards the other. "Like, what's the point- they've beaten us. Hargrove's going to get what he wants, whether that be proof that Freelancer really did put something in us to change us or some suck enjoyment out of this."

"Is that what they're doing to you?" Simmons blinks. "They only took my limbs away to disassemble them and see exactly how they were made. They have no reason to-"

"I don't care," he really doesn't, part of him just wants to go back to the secluded jail to rest.

"Some'ow, he's even more apa-hetic," the Blue shook his head, but from the way his eyes glazed over, Grif wouldn't have been surprised if it made him woozy.

"Time's up," a voice from the speaker announced, and the guards appeared to drag them back to their cells.

Grif goes willingly, and as he walks only then does he feel guilty for his erratic behavior. He had wanted to see the others so badly not too long ago, and yet when given the chance he just treated them so rudely.

He wants to reach up and feel his forehead again but doesn't in fear that the guards would assume that he was trying to pull something on them.

And by the time he gets back to his cell, he's already forgotten the whole ordeal, and his head hurts but he's not sure why.

It's really lonely just being in a cell all the time. It makes him want to see the others again, just one more time. They wouldn't even have to do anything, just so long as he saw them.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't know where I was going with this, but I revised a very old concept I had literally from years ago and thought it made a fitting Bad End AU type dealio. Oooo, the spirit of the approaching Halloween commands I write morbid shit, oooo.
> 
> If you'd like to contact me, you can find me at either of my Tumblr's: @agent-murica (main) and @amateurscribes (writing)!


End file.
